o fight, so did New Brunswick. Now, we backed
Maine, and voted supplies and men to her. Not so England. More soberly,
she said, "Let us arbitrate." We agreed, it was done. By the umpire
Maine was awarded more than half what she claimed. And then we disputed
the umpire's decision on the ground he hadn't given us the whole thing!
Does not this remind you of some of our baseball bad manners? It was
settled later, and we got, differently located, about the original
award.

Did you learn in school about "fifty-four forty, or fight"? We were
ready to take off our coat again. Or at least, that was the platform in
1844 on which President Polk was elected. At that time, what lay between
the north line of California and the south line of Alaska, which then
belonged to Russia, was called Oregon. We said it was ours. England
disputed this. Each nation based its title on discovery. It wasn't
really far from an even claim. So Polk was elected, which apparently
meant war; his words were bellicose. We blustered rudely. Feeling ran
high in England; but she didn't take off her coat. Her ambassador,
Pakenham, stiff at first, unbent later. Under sundry missionary
impulses, more Americans than British had recently settled along the
Columbia River and in the Willamette Valley. People from Missouri
followed. You may read of our impatient violence in Professor Dunning's
book, The British Empire and the United States. Indeed, this volume
tells at length everything I am telling you briefly about these boundary
disputes. The settlers wished to be under our Government. Virtually upon
their preference the matter was finally adjusted. England met us with a
compromise, advantageous to us and reasonable for herself. Thus, again,
was her conduct moderate and pacific. If you think that this was through
fear of us, I can only leave you to our western blow-hards of 1845, or
to your anti-British complex. What I see in it, is another sign of that
fundamental sense of kinship, that persisting unwillingness to have
a real scrap with us, that stares plainly out of our whole first
century--the same feeling which prevented so many English from enlisting
against us in the Revolution that George III was obliged to get
Hessians.

Nicaragua comes next. There again they were quite angry with us on top,
but controlled in the end by the persisting disposition of kinship. They
had land in Nicaragua with the idea of an Isthmian Canal. This we did
not like. They thought